British Industrial History

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Joseph Bramah (1748-1814), famous for the lock he invented and also for the hydraulic press [1] but also responsible for many other inventions including a type of flush toilet, a machine for automatically printing bank notes with sequential serial numbers, the beer pump, as well as developments in civil engineering. Gained about 20 patents.

1748 April 13th (2nd?). Born Stainborough, Yorkshire, the son of Joseph Bramah, Senior (1713-1800), a farmer, and his wife Mary Denton (1710-1774). His parents married on 16th September 1743. See Bramah Genealogy

1748 May 12th. Baptised.

Bramah started work as a farm worker in Yorkshire before an injury caused him to divert his attention to woodworking. He moved to London where he obtained employment as a cabinet-maker. While working fitting water closets, he found certain defects in the model he was installing. He designed his own model, obtained a patent in 1778 and began its manufacture [2].

Later he moved to a shop in Denmark Street, St. Giles's, and while there he made a further improvement in his invention by the addition of a water cock, which he patented in 1783.

1774 Soon after Bramah left home for London, his mother was killed when riding home pillion she fell off on Kereforth Hill

1782 Renting property from Val Ancheatz at St. Giles in the Field possibly in Denmark Street

1783 Patent 1402 for a water cock

1783 Married Mary Lawton of Mapplewell, near Barnsley, and the couple set up home in London. They subsequently had a daughter and four sons. The couple lived at 124 Piccadilly and later moved to Eaton Street(sic), Pimlico [3].

Moved from St. Giles to 124 West End (Opposite fields that became Green Park)

1783 October. Joined the Society of Arts, where he attended some technical discussions on locks.

1784 Bramah started Bramah and Co at Denmark Street, St Giles, London, soon after moving to 124 Piccadilly. The locks produced by his company were famed for their resistance to lock picking and tampering.

1785 Patent. 1407 for 'Water Cock upon a New Construction'. Shown as a cabinet maker of Denmark street, St. Giles.

1785 Dissertation on the construction of locks, Joseph Bramah [4]. As his lock became more widely demanded, he invented a method of mechanising its production.

1802 Patent 2652 for 'Tools for producing straight smooth and parallel surfaces on wood and other materials...' This formed the basis of the planing machine supplied to the Royal Carriage Department of what later became the Woolwich Arsenal

1805 Patent 2840 for the manufacture of paper

c1806 Built a new manufactory on what is now known as Ebury Street but then a rural area. The workshops (when described in 1817) were 180 feet in length and 40 feet wide. Adjacent to the works he built himself a house

1806 Patent 2977 for the sequential numbering of bank notes

1808 Purchased the patent for the steel pen from his friend Bryan Donkin[7].

1809 Patent 3260 for writing pens

1809 Patent 3270 concerning wheeled carriages

1812 Patent 3611 for laying of water pipes

1812 Patent 3616 concerning wheeled carriages

1813 March 22nd. Public experiment of taking trees up by the root with a hydraulic engine was held in Hyde Park

1813 Timothy Bramah, his son, joined the business; company name changed to J. Bramah and Son.

1814 Patent 3780 to prevent dry rot by the application of Parker's Cement or Roman cement

Bramah erected several large machines in his works at Pimlico for sawing stone and timber, to which he applied his hydraulic power with great success. New methods of building bridges and canal-locks, with a variety of other matters, were in an embryo state in his mind, but he did not live to complete them.

1814 Bramah was supervising his hydrostatic press at Holt Forest in Hampshire, where more than 300 trees of the largest dimensions were in torn up by the roots in a very short time, when he caught a severe cold, which settled upon his lungs.

1815 Wharves, warehouse and manufactory, leased by Joseph Bramah on the banks of the Thames near Vauxhall Bridge, were advertised for sale in part or as whole by order of the executors of his estate. As well as buildings, a 8 h.p. engine and a 12 h.p. engine, and machinery for sawing deals and stone, cutting wood, grinding mill for glazing bars, with connecting machinery invented by Mr Bramah were included in the sale [11]. Similar advert in March 1816.

1862 It was noted in reference to William Walker's painting (sic) of "English World Winners" or "Men of Science living in 1807-8" that there had been no portrait painted of Joseph Bramah in his lifetime and that his bust by Chantrey had been destroyed by Lady Chantrey after the sculptor's death. Instead Walker based his view (of the rear of Braham's head) on memories of that of his nephew John Joseph Bramah who had taken over his uncle's business on his death and possessed his uncle's business skills and love of mechanisms if not his inventiveness. He had gathered together a huge business in railway plant at Pimlico, with the help of George and Robert Stephenson, and subsequently transferred it to Smethwick as the London Works, joining himself with Charles Fox and John Henderson as partners; out of their works came the Crystal Palace [13].

1968 The Institution of Mechanical Engineers established the Joseph Bramah Fund at the instigation of Frank Towler, to commemorate Joseph Bramah, the inventor of a patent lock, the hydraulic press and other inventions concerned with pumps, water supply and the production of pipes and tubes by the extrusion process. The fund is used for scholarships and an annual medal.

See Also

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Sources of Information

↑in 1857, a letter in The Times from "one of the family" reminded readers that Bramah had invented the hydraulic press, which was used to launch the Leviathan, The Times, 1 December 1857

↑National Archives relating to document in Warwickshire County Record Office, with MS. note by John Lucy (d. 1823) 'E Libris John Lucy Price 1s. 1788', and another on the front cover in the same hand 'The next Meeting is July ye 7th 1788'